This Vertigo it Brings
by PurplePosie
Summary: When Dean has nightmares, normal nightmares, about things other than the smell of burning flesh or the sound a banshee makes as she's vanished or the prickle of EVP on the back of his neck, he dreams about being shut in.


**Title: **This Vertigo it Brings   
**Rating: **PG, for language  
**Spoil****ers: **Episode 2.12, Nightshifter   
**Disclaimer: **Borrowed without asking, returned without damage   
**Author's Notes:** A brief character sketch of Dean in "Nightshifter". I'd love to know what worked, or didn't, for you.

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When Dean has nightmares - normal nightmares, about things other than the smell of burning flesh or the sound a banshee makes as she's vanished or the prickle of EVP on the back of his neck - he dreams about being shut in. About rooms with no windows or doors, and windows with bars, and doors that don't open no matter how hard he pounds against them. 

It's not claustrophobia, exactly.

He's got - well, not exactly _no_ problems, lying in wait inside cupboards or underneath beds or even, on occasion, the odd coffin, but he does it (mostly without panic) because he's nearly always armed to the teeth and if he's not, he's secure in the knowledge that someone else is, close by and backing him up. And there's always a way _out_. He makes sure of it.

When he thinks about it (and he does, sometimes), he wonders if perhaps this fear of not being able to _get out_ started back with the fire, Sammy squirming in his arms and Dad screaming and Mom burning and Dean so afraid, so very afraid, that the fire had spread and he wouldn't be able to get out the front door to safety. Or maybe it was that poltergeist in Indiana who upended a cupboard over his thirteen year old body. He was lucky it was empty and not lined with shelves or he'd have lost a limb or two, but it was an instant and highly effective prison, and there was a long period when he feared it would become his coffin, too. He'd hammered at it with his fists till his hands were bloody and kicked out as hard as he could in his cramped position, and after an hour he screamed himself hoarse, calling for Dad, for Sammy, for anyone to please, please _get him out_, Dad finally came round to consciousness long enough to haul it off him.

He's made it a point ever since to stay the fuck out of the way of empty cupboards when dealing with pissed-off poltergeists, not keen to relieve those long minutes of utter terror.

It's the _unable-to-get-out_ that keeps him off aeroplanes, though yeah, okay, the whole thousands-of-feet-above-the-ground thing doesn't thrill him either. Something goes wrong up there, some black-eyed demon decides to take out the pilot, and how's he gonna get out? He paid enough attention in high school physics to know that his chances of wrestling the emergency exit open aren't great and even if he managed to get it off, where the fuck was he going to go? Doesn't help that the one time he's braved a plane in the last twenty years, that's _exactly what happened_. No, if the job keeps him moving, and it does, Dean will damn well move in his car. Which, sure, is a little closed in but it has four doors and windows that break and if it came to that, he'd kick the windshield in himself.

Says a little about how much he fears it, that he can contemplate doing that to his baby.

So when the buzz of the helicopter first fills his ears and realisation slams over him - _the cops, it's gotta be the cops _ - his blood runs cold, not because he fears for his life (long passed its use-by date) or for Sam's (in whom he has enough faith to get the hell out of this clusterfuck if Dean goes down) or even his impending arrest, but because he catches a glimpse of it. His future: in a room without windows, a door with bars, his complete inability to leave, to break it down, to _get out_.

The terror is so acute that bile burns, hot and bitter, in his throat. And it's not until the _thump _of Ronald's body hitting the floor that he spurs into action, diving for cover, instinct propelling him down and behind the relative safety of the cabinet, because shit, there's a big part of him that would rather join Ronald on the floor than risk the reality of a future where he's forever_ unable to get out._


End file.
